


Hallucinating the Apocalypse

by betheflame



Series: Steve Tony Games: Flame's Fluff Fills [9]
Category: Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-27
Updated: 2020-06-27
Packaged: 2021-03-04 00:15:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,123
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24944473
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/betheflame/pseuds/betheflame
Summary: Steve held out his hand for the beans while Clint grumbled. “Where are we?”“I think South Africa,” Tony replied. “Or what was South Africa, anyway. We may have gone into Malawi.”“The more pressing question,” Nat interrupted, “is where is the Roxxon base from here?”“40 kilometers due west,” Steve replied as he shoveled cold beans into his mouth.
Relationships: Steve Rogers/Tony Stark
Series: Steve Tony Games: Flame's Fluff Fills [9]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1781239
Comments: 6
Kudos: 86
Collections: Team Fluff





	Hallucinating the Apocalypse

**Author's Note:**

> SteveTony Games Team Fluff Fill for "Hallucinations". This is set in the Marvel What If comic where Steve rescues Erskine, but still goes in the ice. When he wakes up 70 years later, Roxxon has begun to mass produce the serum and humanity is basically divided into human perfection and human trash. The Avengers are part of the resistance to overthrow the dystopian reality that Roxxon's power created.

* * *

“Do you want the tuna?”

Steve shook his head. “I’m tired of tuna.”

“Well, it’s tuna or beans of questionable origin,” Nat replied. “Pick your protein.”

Steve held out his hand for the beans while Clint grumbled. “Where are we?”

“I think South Africa,” Tony replied. “Or what was South Africa, anyway. We may have gone into Malawi.”

“The more pressing question,” Nat interrupted, “is where is the Roxxon base from here?”

“40 kilometers due west,” Steve replied as he shoveled cold beans into his mouth.

“I remember Joburg in The Before,” Bruce said quietly from his place in the abandoned factory they were currently calling home. It had obviously processed tobacco leaves at one point, but how long ago that was was anyone’s guess. “It was fascinating.”

“You go after Apartheid or during?” Tony asked.

“After what?” Steve asked.

“It was one of the first classification systems once everyone started getting the serum, but before everyone realized Roxxon was controlling all of us. It was entirely based on race,” Nat said, “but it was a big part of why only white people get the serum now, unless you are an outrageously connected person of color. But as a system on its own, it fell in one of the last gasps of democracy in the early 90s. South Africans had elections for, what, another ten years? But Roxxon was too strong, they fell just like everywhere else.”

“Wait,” Steve held up his hand. “So the serum is also a tool of _white supremacy_?!”

“Sorry Cap,” Tony said, grimacing, “you’re kinda their poster boy.”

Steve growled so loudly that he shocked Thor awake. The older man had been sleeping in the corner on and off for about an hour. ”What? Who’s there? Please tell me no one kissed me.” His eyes landed on Natasha. “Unless Fair Tasha has succumbed to my charms.”

Nat threw an empty tuna fish can at his head with an affectionate eye roll. He grinned back at her and caught it handily. “

Steve poked at his can of beans and felt his jaw tighten. Everything he thought he and Bucky and the Howlies had fought for in the war was all for naught. He had no idea that Erskine would be tortured into creating more serum, no idea that Roxxon and Hydra were actually the same thing - or he sure would have paid more attention to the Roxxon branding on the Vita-Ray when he stepped in.

“It wasn’t worth it,” Steve muttered. “It wasn’t worth any of it.”

He felt Tony’s hand on his shoulder and he wondered - not for the first time - how they all would have felt about him if he woke up in his own skin instead of Captain America’s. He hated this body and what it had come to represent.

“It was, Cap,” Tony said softly. “The Resistance we’re all a part of? We take inspiration from the Allies all the time. I grew up on stories of the Howlies and other groups even before it was necessary to take inspiration from them to overthrow Roxxon. Sure, you’re the poster child for the bigots, but you’re also ours. ‘Obedience is not patriotic’ has been a watchword of revolution since I was a kid.”

“I said that in passing to Peggy,” Steve muttered.

“And my friend Yelena had it tattooed on her back,” Nat offered. “It was worth it. And now that I know _you_ , you’re worth it.”

A piece of equipment beeped in the corner and Clint made a dive for it. He grimaced. “Time to roll out, Avengers.”

As Steve got up to move, he felt like his legs were in molasses.

_Cap, Cap? Can you hear us? I think he’s coming out of it._

He shook his head. That sounded like Tony, but Tony was right in front of him and decidedly not talking.

_Stevie, buddy, wherever you are in your mind isn’t real._

Steve looked around quickly - how was Bucky in the middle of nowhere with them when he’d been dead for 70 years?

_Baby, Brucie found the answer, Brucie and Strange, we got this. Just come home to me. Come home._

Why the hell was Tony calling him ‘baby’ and who the fuck was Strange?

“Cap?” Nat looked at him quizzically. “You okay?” She tapped him on the shoulder and then…

He gasped a deep breath and opened his eyes to find himself looking right into Tony’s. But this Tony didn’t have blood smeared on his face or a haircut that had been clearly done by a machete, or eyes that could cut someone in half if they stared long enough.

This Tony’s eyes were warm, and surrounded by laugh lines, and Steve reached up his hand to touch them. At the contact, Tony’s eyes filled with tears. “Hi, baby.”

“What’s going on?” Steve rasped.

“You were attacked by one of Doom’s newest failures,” Bruce said, “and have been hallucinating on and off for about a month. We’ve had you in this room alone whenever you start one because… well, it was safer.”

“Where were you this time?”

“Apocalypse, basically,” Steve said, his mind whirring. “So Roxxon doesn’t have the serum?”

Tony shook his head. “I bought Roxxon back in the mid-90s. They became the microchip division.”

“And Bucky,” Steve’s eyes went wide at the sight of his best friend. “We didn’t die in a train crash?”

Bucky flexed his metal arm. “Well, technically, I kinda did, but you definitely didn’t. Reality will sort itself quickly, it always does. Just give yourself a minute.”

Steve sat for a second as his brain recalibrated. He looked down to see a ring on his left hand and then spotted a matching one on Tony’s. “I have an iron alloy ring because Stark men are made of iron and I wanted to be one of you, but you told me that implanting iron because of a dumbass thing Howard used to say was too far.”

“And he’s back,” Tony chuckled and nodded. “I need you to take this pill, it’s got some nanites that are going to erase the programming that Doom put in there.”

“And then no more of these weird trips? Because I also have a memory where I’m a movie star?”

“Oh, that was a fun story to hear,” Bucky said. “Your name was Chris something and you were undercover. But yeah, take this bad boy and Strange says you’re back with us all the time.”

“God, I’m glad that last one wasn’t real,” Steve said. “It was… horrible.”

“You wanna talk about it?” Tony said as he laced their fingers together.

“Nah, I think I’d rather live reality for a little while,” Steve smiled and drew Tony in for a kiss.

**Author's Note:**

> Find me on [Twitter](http://www.twitter.com/betheflame1) or [Tumblr](http://betheflame.tumblr.com) for more on these yahoos. You can also submit prompts and cajole me into writing faster - it usually works. If you're on Discord, I'm definitely there, too, and probably hanging in the [Put on the Suit Stony Server](https://discord.gg/z5WSqbS) or the [PotsCast Podcast server ](http://www.discord.com/4NbA7wy). Oh! And FestiveFerret and I have a [fandom podcast](http://www.podonthesuit.com) if you're so inclined.  
>   
> 


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